


soft as butter, sweet as pie

by sublime_jumbles



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Belly Kink, Body Image, Chubby Bitty, Feeding Kink, Fluff, Hand Feeding, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Kink, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, chubby jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2019-09-17 07:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16970205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sublime_jumbles/pseuds/sublime_jumbles
Summary: Jack is waiting, cheeks a little pink, as Bitty picks up his jaw from its freefall to the scuffed wood floor of the kitchen.“Um, surprise?” says Jack.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i've been wanting to write a check, please! fic for a while now, but this one came at the request of a LOVELY, VERY PATIENT ANON, TO WHOM I OWE MY LIFE. sorry i began this in april and am only posting it now!!!
> 
> also as of today ngozi ukazu is a morris award finalist!!!! this is a Very Big Deal.

It’s been almost two months since Bitty has seen Jack, and he thinks he might be dying of it.  
  
(Okay, _well_ , it might be that he hasn’t slept properly in more than a week, between studying and midterms and stress-baking and the excitement of finally getting to lay eyes and lips on one Jack Laurent Zimmerman, but this is the first time such studies have been performed, and Extended Jack Zimmermann Withdrawal may, in fact, be terminal.)  
  
Jack texted about an hour ago to say he was leaving Providence, and Bitty can feel his excitement ramping up like a sugar rush, can feel it tingling in his fingers as he fusses over crimping the edges of his pie crust. He’s on probably his fourteenth remix of “Crazy In Love,” and the past three _maaaaaaay_ have featured an improvisational riff replacing _crazy in love_ with _crazy for Jack_.  
  
He’s been testing out some new recipes for his vlog as challenges to divert his mind from French verbs and flashcards of twentieth-century American ideologies from the elective sociology class he’s taking with Ransom and Holster. This week he’s been experimenting with apples, since forty pounds of them have taken up residence in the Haus kitchen after Chowder let slip to the others last weekend that he’d never been apple-picking. Bitty selected his own crop of strictly baking apples, but the others were so indiscriminate that he’s not sure what he’s working with anymore. He’s been turning the sweetest ones into mini-pies laced with grated sharp cheddar or Gruyere, the soft mealy ones into applesauce and apple butter, and he’s discovering that even the sourest apples can be tempered by maple and brown sugar. Judging by how fast his sour-then-sweet mini-pies disappeared, they’re a definite hit among his boys.  
  
Outside, there’s the putter of a car pulling into the Haus driveway, and Bitty’s heart does a triple axel in his chest. He takes a deep breath, washes his hands to rid them of extra flour and butter, and darts to the front door just as his phone buzzes with Jack’s arrival update.  
  
He doesn’t mean to leap into Jack’s arms, but, uh. That happens.  
  
Luckily, Jack has spent the last four years being leapt at by college dudes with significantly more body mass than Bitty, and even with his extra weight, Bitty still isn’t a _whole_ lot of person. So Jack catches him without a problem, his smile incandescent as he hugs Bitty to his chest.  
  
“Aw, Bits,” he says softly, his lips brushing Bitty’s cheek. “Man, it is good to see you.”  
  
Bitty wraps his arms around Jack’s neck and kisses him, long and sweet and firm, then buries his face in Jack’s neck. “You too, Mr. Zimmermann. It’s been _much_ too long since I’ve kissed you.”  
  
Jack laughs, and he carries Bitty back into the Haus, all the way to the cubic foot of kitchen counter that isn’t dominated by plastic sacks of apples.  
  
“Wow,” Jack says, setting him down on the counter. Bitty’s stomach settles comfortably in his lap, and Jack gives it an affectionate pat. “You guys have been busy, eh?”  
  
“Extremely,” says Bitty, running his hands down Jack’s sides and letting them sink into the soft puffiness of his thick down vest. “Lardo found out that Chowder had never gone apple-picking, so she organized a whole thing and now I’m swamped. See if any of your teammates are interested in applesauce or apple butter, will you?”  
  
“ _I’ve_ never been apple-picking,” says Jack, thumbing at Bitty’s belly where it rounds over his waistband beneath his sweater.  
  
“Agh!” says Bitty, soaking in his touch like a pitcher of sweet tea in sun. “Don’t tell Lardo, I’m drowning in fruit as it is. But we’ll have to fix that eventually. Actually, I’ll do you one better - come home with me sometime and we can pick peaches. I’ll bake you all the peach cobbler you can eat.”  
  
“Deal,” says Jack, smiling, and Bitty’s heart swells three sizes. Lord, he missed this boy. Missed his soft voice and his fresh snowy smell and his crinkly blue eyes, his strong arms and his gentle hands.  
  
He pulls Jack in for another kiss, grabbing both of his hands in his own, and he takes a moment to trace Jack’s lips with his fingertip before the oven beeps and reminds him that he has a pie to tend.  
  
“So!” he says, sliding off the counter. Jack slips out of his way, used to maneuvering alongside Bitty’s delicate kitchen choreography. “Tell me all about your fancy-pants training camp, and tell me all about preseason! Tell me about the real season! I want to know everything!”  
  
“Everything?” Jack teases. “Even the disgusting sweaty parts?”  
  
Bitty slides his pie out of the oven. “Use your discretion, please.”  
  
“Warm in here,” remarks Jack, stripping off his down vest and pulling his Falconers hoodie over his head. Bitty turns at the movement in his periphery, and he’s glad he put the pie down before looking, because he _certainly_ would have dropped it.  
  
Under the hoodie, Jack is wearing a clingy t-shirt, Samwell red. Under the t-shirt, there’s a soft, pudgy belly that was definitely not there when Jack left for training camp. By all accounts, this is the _opposite_ of what he should look like after training camp.  
  
Bitty’s lungs go suddenly airless. _I think I’m getting bigger_ , Jack had said on the phone a few weeks ago, _I’m eating like 7,000 calories a day,_ and although Bitty, ever wishful, had cracked a too-true joke about liking his boys soft as butter, he’d assumed Jack had meant he’d been gaining muscle. Why wouldn’t he? He was _training_ , because he was a _professional athlete_.  
  
If Bitty had to identify his type in guys, he guesses it would probably just be _Jack Zimmermann_ . But if truly pressed - if you were talking strictly physical type only - he would admit that his preferences fall somewhere closer to _Jack Zimmermann, plus thirty pounds_. His love of food is tied up with a love of people who love food, and it doesn’t take one of Ransom and Holster’s infamous whiteboard presentations to see how he’s gotten from point A) _baking_ to point B) _feeding people_ to point C) _hmm chubby dudes are pretty hot_ to point D) _oh dear especially when they like to eat_ all the way to point E) _HELP!_

Jack is waiting, cheeks a little pink, as Bitty picks up his jaw from its freefall to the scuffed wood floor of the kitchen.

“Um, surprise?” says Jack.

“Oh, _honey_ ,” Bitty breathes. He holds out his hands, gestures Jack forward. “You look amazing. I have some questions about _how_ , but - _Lord_.”

Jack comes closer, shucks the oven mitt (emblazoned with the phrase _I’ll feed all you fuckers_ , a stunningly on-the-nose Christmas gift from Lardo) from Bitty’s right hand.

“I missed you,” Jack says simply, and he backs Bitty up to the counter, so that Bitty can feel the soft squish of Jack’s stomach against his own. Something inside him sparks at the sensation, the two of them bumping up against each other like they’ve always been, but softer now, indulged, content.

“This much?” Bitty’s hands find the swells of Jack’s sides over the waistband of his jeans. “You were _training._ ” 

“Remember all those cookies you sent me before training?” says Jack, slipping his hands into the back pockets of Bitty’s jeans. Gently, he spreads his hands over Bitty’s butt - only improved by extra pounds in addition to hockey - and squeezes a little.

Bitty blushes. He’s not in the habit of calling himself shameless, but …. The Great Zimmermann Cookie Blitz of 2015 was one of his more shameless moments. Probably, he thinks, sending any one person more than eight dozen cookies at a time - _intending_ more than eight dozen cookies for _one person_ \- qualifies as a shameless act.

“Yes,” says Bitty cautiously.

“Well,” says Jack, bending to bump his forehead against Bitty’s, “I know you probably intended them to be shared with my teammates” - Bitty gives a halfheartedly innocent shrug - “but … they were so good that I kept them all for myself. And they reminded me of you, and it made missing you a little easier.”

Bitty dares to put a hand on Jack’s belly, lets his fingers sink in. “I don’t think I did _this_ with just cookies, did I?”

“It was a start,” says Jack. “But - I couldn’t ask you to send a pie in the mail -“

“I would have found a way,” Bitty interjects. 

Jack laughs. “I’m sure you would. But - and I’m really sorry about this, Bits - instead I just ate a lot of supermarket pie. It wasn’t, you know, _good_. Obviously yours are way better. But it still reminded me of you. And besides” - he pauses, takes a deep breath - “you like this, right?”

Bitty, on the precipice of a passionate denouncement of supermarket pies, feels himself go furiously red. “Um,” he says. “Yes. I apparently _thought_ I was being much more subtle than I was, but, um - yes. I do. You look ….” He fishes for a word that won’t offend him, that won’t imply anything beyond _hot damn you look so good!!!_  

“Scrumptious,” he finishes, and Jack laughs again, gathering Bitty into his arms. “Deliciously, sumptuously soft.”

“As sweet as your pies?” Jack asks, kissing the top of Bitty’s head. “What’s this one cooling?”

“Sour-then-sweet,” Bitty says into Jack’s soft chest. “Tart apple with maple and brown sugar. It’s all yours if you want it.” 

He chances a look up at Jack, his cheeks still warm with the adrenaline rush of being found out, and Jack is smiling, his blue eyes bright.

“I might want it,” says Jack.

—

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” says Bitty, drawing a dramatic hand across his forehead, “or that it’s even humanly possible, but - your butt got _better_.”

Jack presses a laugh into Bitty’s chest. “So did yours.”

Bitty jiggles Jack’s belly indignantly. “I didn’t have a butt to begin with!" 

“And now you do,” says Jack, squeezing it as if to make his point. “Instant improvement.”

They’re lounging on Bitty’s bed, Jack full and soft and lazy, his t-shirt pushed up around his ribs, and Bitty full of tactile energy, eager to explore.

The pie is mostly gone, which is mostly Jack’s doing. Bitty _did_ take a few bites here and there to assess the quality as it cooled, but his own epicurean vices tend more toward the savory, the buttery, the deep-fried - he _is_ Southern, after all. 

It’s clear, however, from the way Jack took to that pie like he hadn’t seen a gram of fat in weeks, that he’s developed something of a sweet tooth in absentia. Bitty is already brainstorming, mentally handpicking another eight dozen cookies to send his way, just in time for the weather to turn colder. A pie might travel all right on the commuter rail, he thinks, or maybe mini-pies in one of his fancy cupcake carriers would be better.

He might feel a little guilty about leaping into this headfirst, except that Jack looks so damn _happy_.

Instead, he attempts to turn off the devious baker cortex of his brain, and he pulls Jack on top of him, which is no small feat considering that Jack has six inches on him and is packing at least ( _at least!_ ) twenty more pounds than usual. Jack groans a little with the movement, but he doesn’t complain.

“Seriously,” Bitty continues, running his hands down Jack’s back, making a pit stop to squeeze and grab at the bulges of his sides. “You already had nature’s perfect butt, and now it’s just - _bigger_! Rounder! Softer! Infinitely better in every way!”

Jack is _blushing_ now, Bitty notices delightedly. Good. He should know exactly how perfect he is.

“Finish your pie, sweetheart,” he says, giving Jack’s butt an affectionate pat. He’s raring to get a little bit saucy, and having two hundred and _who knows how many_ pounds of Jack Zimmermann on top of him _certainly_ is not helping the matter. But he doesn’t know where Jack stands with that, and he’s afraid it’s too early to ask. Jack seems comfortable like this, but a suggestive _You’re looking rounder than a peach ready for picking, honeypie_ seems like the kind of thing that might scare him back to Providence -- or worse, Quebec.

So instead, Bitty just tacks on a persuasive “You know I’d hate for you to be left with a cold apple pie,” and Jack raises an eyebrow.

“When did this become _my_ pie?” he asks, but he obediently rolls off Bitty, sits up, and picks up the fork from the plate.

“Since I’ve been eating nothing but apples in various forms for the past week,” says Bitty. “Trust me, that last piece is all yours.”

“Hmmm,” says Jack. “If I’ve gotta eat, you’ve gotta eat.” He points his fork at Bitty. “That’s the rules.”

“I’ll eat!” says Bitty. “You’re getting a big welcome-back-to-the-Haus dinner, not an apple in sight. I promise I’ll eat plenty. Besides, look at me - I think it’s obvious I’ve been eating. No more figure skater diets for this boy.”

“Okay,” Jack allows around a bite of pie. “That’s fair.”

Bitty watches him close his eyes as he eats, listens for the little sigh of pleasure that follows, and he rests a hand beneath Jack’s shirt and gets comfy beside him.

“I remember when you told me you didn’t like dessert,” says Bitty, the edge of a tease lingering on the words.

“Well, you did condition me to associate dessert with _you_ ,” Jack teases, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “And now I can’t get enough.”

Bitty sucks in his breath. Lord, he loves hearing Jack talk about this, but he’s a little afraid it’s going to turn him into Samwell Men’s Hockey’s first victim of spontaneous human combustion.

“Of me _or_ the sweets, from the looks of it,” he dares to say, squeezing a handful of Jack’s stomach beneath his shirt. He watches Jack carefully, ready to backpedal and let go and scoot away at the smallest pinch of Jack’s eyebrows, the slightest downward pull of his mouth.

But instead, Jack laughs, sets the empty pie plate on Bitty’s desk, and flops back against the pillows. He rests a hand on the swell of his belly and wobbles it a little, and Bitty struggles to breathe.

“That’s true,” Jack says to the ceiling. “But it’s actually really nice to have some extra padding for the checks." 

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Bitty insists, snuggling down beside him. “I don’t bruise nearly as badly anymore.”

Jack angles a grin at Bitty that makes him melt like vanilla ice cream over apple crisp. “You Georgia peach,” he says affectionately, kissing Bitty’s forehead. “See? You’re keeping me safe. Safe and well-fed. Do you know how many of your almond-butter-and-jam sandwiches I’ve eaten since I last saw you?”

Bitty sent a full backseat of fresh bread, tubs of hand-ground almond butter, and jars upon jars of homemade jam back to Providence with Jack at the end of August. This, ostensibly, was intended for the whole team - but he doesn’t think his brain has the capacity to imagine what Jack could have done with that on his own. 

“Dare I even ask?” says Bitty, burying his face in Jack’s collarbone.

“Well,” Jack starts, and Bitty can hear that he’s enjoying this. Well, _good_. “Before our first preseason game, I had one. You know, for the protein.” He smirks at Bitty.  

Bitty swats him. “Oh, hush.”

“And we won,” Jack goes on. “So I did it again before the next game, except then Tater came by and wanted one and he asked if I was having one, and I told him I already had, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so … I had another. And we won again. And the next game, I missed dinner - don’t look at me like that, Bits, I Skyped my mom and lost track of time - so I had three. And that night we won by a _lot_ , so …” He shrugs. “I might have continued doing it into the season, and now it’s … a thing.”

Bitty catches his breath and sits up. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann! Are you telling me that you’ve been adding a sandwich to your pregame ritual every _night_?” He can practically feel his eyes bugging out of his head.

“No, no!” yelps Jack, laughing. “I stopped at three. Three before every game. And then, you know, some on off days. Or for breakfast. That adds up.”

“That’s still more than thirty sandwiches,” says Bitty, burying his face in his hands. “In _two weeks_!" 

“Um,” says Jack. His smile creeps through the straight face he’s trying to maintain. “Yes?”

Every circuit in Bitty’s brain fires at once. “On top of dinner?" 

“On top of dinner,” Jack confirms, and Bitty feels himself go a little faint.

“Oh, _honey_ ,” he says, laying his head on Jack’s chest. “That is … a lot to take in.”

Jack laughs, rubbing a hand over his belly. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot more now that you’ve seen me like this.” 

“As long as you’re willing,” says Bitty, kissing at Jack’s neck. “I’ll feed you whatever you want as long as I know you want it.”

Bitty slides down so that his face is at the perfect level to kiss at Jack’s stomach. It’s soft and warm, and Bitty smooches it loudly all over until Jack begins to laugh and squirm beneath him. Then he sits on Jack’s thighs and kneads at his belly like it’s a mound of bread dough.

Jack sighs contentedly. “As long as it’s from you,” he says, “I always want it.”

Bitty melts faster than butter in a hot pan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAY IT'S DONE!!! thank you all (but especially my cp anon) for waiting for over a literal year for me to finish this. i hope you enjoy it!!!
> 
> big thanks to wy for beta reading!!! and especially thank you for reading that same conversation about a billion times this week! u r the best!!
> 
> brief cw for body image issues/talk about body image issues. it's over p fast and it isn't super dark or serious, but it IS there.

None of the boys gives Jack any shit at his welcome-home dinner, which Bitty wasn’t  _ really  _ worried about but truth be told was maybe a  _ little  _ worried about, because Jack is fragile sometimes, and it doesn’t always take a full-fledged criticism to make his anxiety flare, so much as something Jack  _ perceives  _ as criticism.

But Shitty, up from Boston for the night, has a little law-school dadbod that he claims is 100% intentional. Ransom and Holster are looking softer this semester too, Ransom with cheeks that Bitty’s inner Southern grandma wants to pinch and Holster in a baby-blue button-down that’s straining around at least one button. Bitty relaxes. Of course no one is going to give Jack shit about this. They’re his boys, and all they’re going to care about is how happy Jack looks. 

Bitty relaxes a little bit less when Shitty hoists Jack over his shoulder to slam-dunk him into the Haus’s customary autumn leaf pile. Jack’s t-shirt rides up as he squirms and flails over Shitty’s shoulder, and the peek of soft belly that winks out from beneath the hem makes Bitty go weak in the knees.

Aaaaaaand then there’s the dinner part of dinner, where Bitty does the exact opposite of relax, because Jack, beside him, just keeps eating. And eating. And  _ eating _ .

Bitty sucks in a deep breath. He lived with this for years! He’s seen Jack eat before. He’s seen Jack eat a  _ lot  _ before. He’s seen this entire team obliterate brunches at Annie's that could feed Samwell’s entire student body. 

_ Buuuuut _ , he whines in his head, shifting his weight in his seat, he’s never had to do that while burdened (#blessed???) with the knowledge that, only a couple hours before, any of them ate  _ an entire pie _ .

He sneaks a glance at Jack’s belly. It’s not big enough to sit on his thighs - Bitty squeezes his eyes shut thinking about how many more sandwiches that would take - but it swells out sweetly over the waistband of his jeans, more evident now that he’s sitting rather than standing. Bitty wants to squish it, run his fingertips over the adorable little indent his belly button creates in his t-shirt, see if he can feel how full Jack must be after two helpings of dinner.

_ Or three helpings _ , he amends wildly as Jack reaches for the platter of fried chicken and fresh biscuits, then the tureen of sausage gravy, then the mixing bowl of mashed potatoes, then the dish of creamed collard greens. He adds a couple spoonfuls of thick cheddar grits in the tiny patch of plate that isn’t full of food, and a delicious shiver works its way down Bitty’s spine. His mom makes her grits with spinach now instead of butter, but Bitty remains old-school: substituting spinach for butter feels too much like a figure-skating diet for his liking. 

Bitty nudges the bread basket and butter toward Jack, then sits on his hands because this is  _ dangerous _ .

“This is a  _ bonkers  _ amount of food, Bitty,” says Shitty from across the table. “How long did it take you to make all this?”

“Oh,” says Bitty, taking his hands back out to fiddle with his napkin. “Longer to plan the   
menu than to make, really! This really wasn’t even of  _ half  _ of what I wanted to serve, but I had to talk myself out of making  _ quite  _ so much. You know -”

“Midterms,” says Shitty knowingly, as Bitty is teetering on the edge of blathering  _ Eyes bigger than my stomach! _

“Exactly!” he says instead, wringing his napkin in his lap. “ _ Midterms _ .”

He isn’t even sure  _ eyes bigger than his stomach  _ applies anymore, what with the weight he’s put on in the past year or so. His mom says it comes from his dad’s side of the family. His dad says it must be something in the Massachusetts water. Bitty thinks maybe he’s just not a teenager anymore. Maybe his body has a limit for how much pie he can eat before he starts holding onto it.

It had taken him a little while to adjust to the weight - nights squinting at himself in the mirror pre-shower, poking and pinching at the extra chub around his waist, on his thighs; a couple covert shopping trips to size up when his jeans stopped buttoning comfortably; mornings alone in bed running his hands over his soft stomach and hips, wondering what Jack would think. He’d hemmed and hawed at his reflection, found the selfie angles that hid his little double chin, voraciously read up on the most slimming clothing styles. He’d dreaded the day when Jack sent him a link to a new exercise regime or Chowder fumbled a well-meaning remark about his weight -

And then he’d played his best season yet, and he’d found that he was stronger than ever, and he’d kept the weight on no matter how much he exercised or what he ate. His classes had kept him busier, nudging him toward more and more stress-baking binges, and he’d started to take comfort in letting himself enjoy some of his spoils as a reward for finishing homework. And, as the season pushed on, he found that he didn’t quite mind his extra weight so much. He’d begun to settle into it, leaned into the soft, comfortable feeling of his stomach settling over the waistband of his sweats after a game, the indulgent exhale after a post-homework treat. 

And Jack - bless him,  _ Jack  _ \- had cradled Bitty’s extra tummy in his hands so gently, had kissed that little double chin until it was pink from the scratch of his stubble, had joyfully declared how great it was to be able to rest his head on Bitty’s pillowy middle. It had all been enough to make Bitty feel positively drunk in love, and little by little, Bitty had opened himself up to the idea that gaining some chub might actually be the best accident of his Samwell career, after Jack Zimmermann. 

Jack Zimmermann, who, right now, is sitting beside him with his stomach pooched out over his jeans, shoveling grits into his mouth in a way that definitely,  _ definitely!!  _ isn’t sexy but still somehow makes Bitty want to drag him into the next room and get on top of him.

“Don’t forget to save room for dessert, hon,” he edges, like Jack isn’t still full of pie from two hours ago. He inches his hands back under his thighs. “Or any of you! I have plenty of apple goodies for all of you, and you’d better take them off my hands.”

Jack drops a hand to his belly, and Bitty feels himself still. He doesn’t breathe as Jack exhales hard, thumbs at his stomach where his waistband has to be digging into it, and then slowly, covertly, undoes his button. 

_ OH SHIT!!!!  _ go the sirens in Bitty’s brain. 

—

Between dinner and dessert, Ransom and Holster and Shitty offer to get the dishes in exchange for what Shitty calls “the ultimate binge-eating extravaganza, thanks, Bitty,” and Bitty, nearly cross-eyed with the effort of not letting on how bonkers Jack is driving him, almost slumps to the floor in relief. 

He takes a breather against the wall of the hallway, then dares to peek around the corner into the living room, where Jack is sprawled out on the couch, legs spread in a way that Bitty is sure is just for comfort and instead looks ridiculously, deliciously suggestive. 

Lardo is curled on the couch next to Jack, talking animatedly about the Falconers/Aces game last weekend, but when Bitty slips over to Jack’s other side, she shoots him finger-guns.

“A-plus feast, Bittle. You got at least one food coma over here with this one” - she tilts her head toward Jack - “and probably another one with Shits, except he’s too gentlemanly not to fight it long enough to do your dishes.” 

She holds out her fist to bump, and Bitty meets it with blood pounding in his ears. “Success, right?” she says. “That’s a job well done.”

“Oh yeah,” Bitty manages. “That’s how you know.”

Lardo stretches her arms over her head, her top riding up to show off the little bulge of pudge over the waist of her skirt. “I’ll give you a minute with Zims, huh? Gonna help the guys with the dishes and see if there’s any more of those dinner rolls leftover.”

“Oh, there are,” Bitty assures her, inching closer to Jack. “There definitely are.”

Jack nods in agreement. His eyes are heavy-lidded, and his shirt is tugged down to hide the open button at his waist. Bitty draws in a sharp breath. 

“Did you eat enough, honey?” he asks, laying a hand on Jack’s belly. He’s so full that it makes Bitty squirm. Bitty shifts position until he’s sitting full-on in Jack’s lap. 

“Definitely,” says Jack, tipping his head back. “Probably too much. But god, Bits, that was so good. I don’t think I’ll be able to button my pants for the rest of the weekend.”

Bitty’s breath catches on the inhale. “And is that … is that okay with you?”

He doesn’t know how to ask the question that’s been lurking beneath his raging excitement about Jack’s soft figure, buried beneath the stream of exclamation points and italics his brain has melted into since Jack walked through the Haus door earlier. But Jack’s  _ Probably too much  _ gets him worrying again, and he cups Jack’s belly in his hands, gentle. Jack takes a moment to respond, which ratchets up the worry by a couple degrees, and Bitty thumbs nervously at the soft fabric of Jack’s t-shirt. 

“Yes,” says Jack finally, and Bitty lets about half his relief out in a sigh. 

“And you’re okay with … this?” he asks, indicating Jack’s stomach.

Jack nods. “Yeah. I think at least part of it might be from my meds. We changed the dosage before training, and it’s been going really well, I feel really good, but they warned me that my metabolism might change.” 

He clears his throat, and for a minute Bitty worries at what might come next. But a sly smile tugs at Jack’s mouth, and he adds, “But don’t get me wrong. Your baking did a lot of this, too.”

The remark that springs to Bitty’s lips is a saucy  _ There’s a lot more where that came from, sweetheart _ , but he decides that even if Jack is okay with his new weight, maybe he should give him a little more time to adjust before getting  _ quite  _ so forward. 

Instead, he kisses Jack long and soft, carding his fingers through Jack’s hair. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I think you wear it  _ very  _ well.”

“Oh, I know  _ you  _ think so,” says Jack, smirking, and Bitty pinches his cheek gently. 

“I don’t appreciate your tone, Mr. Zimmermann,” he teases, and Jack laces his hands at the small of Bitty’s back and pecks him on the nose. 

“Maybe I like winding you up a little,” he says. “Maybe it’s getting  _ me  _ a little wound up.”

It sends a wild thrill through Bitty to hear that from Jack - Jack, who so rarely takes the lead with anything more than kissing or getting handsy, Jack, who is so charmingly and reliably vanilla that his primary kink seems to be whatever turns Bitty on. 

He’s been planning to serve Jack the same dessert as everyone else, mini pies with some local vanilla ice cream and homemade cinnamon syrup, but as he kisses Jack, another idea begins to take shape in his head, one that’s rich with butter and thick with heavy cream. As long as he can find some lemon, and he has enough sugar -

“BITTY!” booms a chorus of voices from the kitchen, and Bitty startles in Jack’s lap. 

“What is it?” he calls back, praying that it’s not some kind of cookware-related disaster. He’s down to just about the bare minimum of pie plates and oven mitts as he can operate on, but he didn’t  _ hear  _ anything crashing, so -

“WE WANT DESSERT!” comes the holler back, and then Ransom and Holster, separated from the pack: 

“We would’ve come and got you, but -”

“You know, man, didn’t want to intrude -”

“We know it’s been, uh -”

“ _ A while  _ since you guys saw each other.”

Jack laughs and blushes to his ears, and Bitty, still pressed against the swell of Jack’s belly, feels himself go red too.

“I’ll be right there!” he calls back, slipping off Jack’s lap. “Don’t touch anything, I have a very precise system worked out for the way dessert should be served!”

He straightens his shirt, then turns back to where Jack is still planted on the couch, thighs spread wide in his khakis. “Don’t think you’ll get away without at least a little dessert,” says Bitty, and Jack raises an eyebrow. 

“So the whole pie I ate earlier didn’t count as dessert?”

His tone is playful, so Bitty dares to respond, “That was  _ lunch _ , sweetheart, don’t be silly. Or do you need to have three sandwiches on top of dinner before you start thinking about dessert?”

Jack laughs. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” He catches a burp in his fist. “Oof, sorry. But at the very least, I plan to carry that three-sandwich habit into the season.”

Bitty shrugs coyly. “I still think you should add one every night. I’ll send ingredients accordingly.”

Jack smirks. “I’ll order the next size up in uniforms now.” 

Which is  _ bad enough _ , and then Bitty’s whole brain whites out for a moment as Jack works to haul himself off the couch. He grunts, rolling his hips, then sinks back down, one hand to his belly.

“Need help?” Bitty manages breathlessly.

Jack nods, and Bitty gives him a hand, holding his breath as Jack braces his other hand against the couch and slowly pulls himself upright. As soon as he has a free hand, he cradles his belly with it, and Bitty struggles for air. 

“Are you all right?” he asks, 

Jack stifles another burp, and Bitty goes a little weak in the knees. “Yeah, fine. Just - god, Bits. You keep me well fed.”

For a moment, Bitty is legitimately afraid he’ll swoon like a Southern belle whose corset is laced too tight. Maybe he should start scouring eBay for a Haus fainting couch. 

He locks an arm around Jack’s waist, as much to keep himself upright as anything else. “Do you think you can manage at least a little dessert? If everyone is willing to wait, I think I have what I need to whip up some quick caramel to go with the mini pies and ice cream.”

“You know what I love about you?” Jack says, shaking his head. “Your unerring ability to take something that’s already incredibly caloric and then figure out how to make it  _ even more caloric _ .”

Bitty takes Jack’s hand and leads him toward the kitchen, tossing his best winning smile over his shoulder. “What can I say? I’m a man of many talents. Now come taste the best caramel of your life, sweetheart.”

—

Jack doesn’t crawl into bed with Bitty so much as he crash-lands beside him. Bitty thrills at the dip of the mattress on Jack’s side, then snuggles up to him as Jack squirms around, trying to get himself under the covers.

Finally Jack collapses with an exaggerated huff next to him, and as Bitty kisses him hello, he can’t help but notice how labored Jack’s breathing is, how bloated he feels where their bellies bump up against each other. 

Jack ate dessert with everyone else earlier, and then he’d kept grazing after everyone else had left or settled down for the night, as Bitty righted the kitchen from the siege of hockey boys who thought their cleaning efforts been useful. A bite of pie here, a spoonful of caramel there, until he’d leaned his considerable weight against Bitty in the blue light of the kitchen and murmured, “Sleep soon?”

And now here they are, facing each other in Bitty’s tiny twin bed, testing the limits of just how much plus-size hockey player it can hold. Soft, sleepy Jack is one of Bitty’s favorite Jacks, and the knowledge that Jack’s sleepiness is probably partially fueled by the tremendous amount of Bitty’s cooking he’s consumed today is making Bitty’s heart flutter like a hummingbird to nectar. 

“Full?” he asks, palming Jack’s stomach, and Jack nods, eyes closed. 

“So full.” He rolls onto his back. “You’re going to have to roll me out to the car tomorrow.”

Excitement jags in Bitty’s chest. “Sure I can’t talk you into staying in my bed forever?”

Jack snuggles closer to him. “You just want to be able to feed me all the time.”

Bitty sucks in a quick, thrilling breath. “Is that a problem?” he asks, his face close to Jack’s, their lips nearly brushing.

Jack whispers, “ _ Pas du tout _ .”

Their lips meet in a kiss that takes a hairpin turn from soft into urgent and rough, pulling each other closer, hands fisting in shirts and grabbing through boxers. Bitty fills his hands with the mound of Jack’s stomach, the lush swells of his sides, the round expanse of his ass. The bulk of Jack’s body, the breadth and heft and girth of him, his sturdiness and softness coexisting, is driving him wild. He whines against Jack’s mouth, and he feels Jack say against him:  _ I know, I know. _

“ _ Lord _ ,” says Bitty breathlessly as Jack mouths at his jaw, his neck. “Jack, sweetheart, you are a recipe for disaster looking like this.”

Jack’s teeth leave his throat. “I assume that’s a good thing.”

“Yes, honey,” says Bitty, or he tries to, his words cut off in a gasp when Jack goes back to work sucking at the thin skin there. “ _ Lord yes _ , that’s a good thing.”

Jack gives him a quick, affirmative kiss on the collarbone and then moves down to his belly, pushing Bitty’s Falconers tank top up to his chest and turning his gentle teeth onto the skin of Bitty’s stomach instead. 

Bitty arches beneath him as Jack kneads and mouths at the stretch marks strewn across Bitty’s pale skin, tracing their trajectories with his tongue. Bitty thinks hungrily that Jack has stretch marks now, too, in fun places and not just from gaining muscle or growing tall, places he can squish and jiggle and explore.

And then Jack lays his full body weight on top of him, and he stops thinking about anything but how fantastically, deliciously heavy Jack feels.

“God, you’re huge,” he moans between sloppy kisses. “You’re so big, honey, you’re twice my size at least, do you know how  _ hot  _ that is -”

He says it without thinking, pairs it with a particularly ambitious grab of Jack’s plump belly, and then he turns cold all over when Jack goes completely still.

“Can we take a minute?” asks Jack, and the  _ OH SHIT!!!  _ sirens sound again in Bitty’s head, but way less fun this time. 

He finds Jack’s gaze in the dark, grabbing for his hand. “What’s wrong? Is this - not okay?”

Jack props himself up on one elbow. “Most of it is fine,” he says, slow and level. “I like the way you touch me. The way you’re all over me like this, it makes me feel - loved. Desired.”

Bitty holds his breath. 

“But?” 

“But I don’t think I like having my body ... talked about like that,” Jack says, his gaze dropping. “I thought it would be okay, but - it doesn’t feel good. I’m okay with this” - he brings Bitty’s hand to his stomach - “and I’m okay with eating for you. But hearing you call me  _ big  _ or  _ huge  _ is too much for where I am with this.” He swallows and brings his eyes back to Bitty’s. “Can we work with that?”

“Of course, honey,” says Bitty, squeezing Jack’s hand. He’s frantically running through his mental tape of everything he’s said about Jack’s body today, trying to figure out if this was the first time he called Jack  _ big _ , if he made any other flippant remarks about how  _ giant  _ Jack is. “Of course we can. Did I - did I say anything else today that didn’t feel good to you?”

“No,” says Jack, and it’s so immediate that Bitty believes him. “Everything else has been fine, I promise.”

“Oh, god,” says Bitty, his memory snagging: his own oblivious delight, Jack’s self-conscious blush. “I called your butt big earlier, didn’t I? Was that not okay?”

Jack’s face softens. “That was fine, Bitty. Everyone talks about how big my butt is. Ransom and Holster have a whole presentation about it.” He shrugs. “I figured it wouldn’t be different for the rest of me, but - it is.”

“I’ll stop,” says Bitty, kneading at Jack’s hand. “And you’d better tell me if I say anything else that doesn’t make you feel good, you hear? I want to make this as good for you as I possibly can.”

He can hear himself getting flustered, can hear the Southern grandma slipping into his tone, and Jack saves him from blathering any more by pulling him into his chest. 

“I’ll tell you,” he says, kissing the crown of Bitty’s head. “Right away.”

In a strange way, Bitty feels like he’s let out a breath he’s been holding, knowing that Jack is willing to set that boundary. If Jack’s okay with setting rules, then that must mean that everything until now has been okay too, that he hasn’t just been placating Bitty and ignoring his own feelings in favor of keeping the peace. And that makes Bitty feel a whole lot less doomsday about this conversation. 

“I’m sorry,” he says into Jack’s chest. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay,” says Jack, stroking his hair. “I didn’t either. This is still all pretty new to me, and I guess I don’t really know yet what I won’t like. But we’ll figure it out together, eh?”

Bitty nods. “Eh,” he agrees, because it usually makes Jack laugh, and sure enough, he feels Jack’s little huff of amusement against his temple. 

He rolls Jack onto his back and slips a hand beneath Jack's shirt, grazing his fingertips so lightly over the soft skin that Jack gives a breathy little gasp. “Can I give you a turn?” Bitty asks. “Show you how much I love how you look instead of telling you?”

Jack shudders and breathes, “Yes.”

Bitty flattens himself along Jack’s torso, stroking Jack’s jaw with one hand and grabbing a handful of his stomach with the other. Jack makes another soft sound that slams the button in Bitty’s brain labeled  _ JACK ZIMMERMANN’S VULNERABLE NOISES _ , and Bitty kisses him hard. 

He kisses at the soft spot beneath Jack’s chin that’s usually a little rough with stubble, sucking at his hint of double chin, and wills himself to stay gentle with the hand that’s playing with Jack’s gut. He’d love to cover that plush skin with a whole strawberry patch of bruises, but Jack has to change in front of his teammates every day, and Bitty figures Jack’s got enough to worry about without having to cover up the very telling evidence of Bitty’s preferences.

Even so, he can't keep himself from sliding down until his mouth is level with Jack’s stomach, and he runs his tongue over every raspberry-red stretch mark he can find, until Jack is squirming and whining beneath him. Bitty isn’t sure which words will make him feel better and which will make him feel worse, so he sticks with the ones that are always safe.

“You’re being so good, honey,” he murmurs, tracing a finger along the striae on the insides of Jack’s thick thighs and following the path with his mouth, using his teeth just enough to move a little south of gentle. “You’re doing so good.”

Jack rolls his hips and moans, and Bitty scrambles back up to Jack’s belly. “So good,” he soothes, gently kneading at the swell of Jack’s stomach with the heels of his hands. “You ate so well for me today, hmm? Look at you, so full and pretty.” He glances up at Jack. “Was that okay?”

Jack nods and arches again, his hand striking out for Bitty’s hair. “Yeah,” he manages. “That’s good.”

Bitty squishes Jack’s stomach in his hands. “You wanna hear how pretty you are? Because Lord, honey, you’re the sweetest thing I’ve laid eyes on since Betsy II.” 

Jack makes an extremely compromising noise halfway between a desirous whine and a  _ you’re-incorrigible _ kind of laughter. “You really know how to work that dirty talk, Bittle.”

“I told you,” says Bitty, jiggling Jack’s belly gently. “Man of  _ many _ ,  _ many  _ talents.”

He stretches out alongside Jack, moving in to kiss him again, and runs his hand up one of Jack’s thick biceps, muscles strong beneath a layer of fat. “Your arms,” he murmurs against Jack’s lips, “are incredible. And you’re so comfy when you pick me up and bear-hug me. I never want you to put me down.”

He feels Jack smile. “Hard to kiss you like I wanna when you keep talking, Bits.”

“All right, all right!” says Bitty, and he lets those incredible arms wrap him up tight.

Jack kisses like he’s still hungry, which seems like it should be impossible after the sheer volume of food he’s eaten today, and Bitty lets himself sink into him, savoring his warm bulk. Jack’s breathing is low and labored beside him, a constant, wanting rhythm to match the pulse of yearning surging through Bitty. They roll against each other, plush on plush, and Bitty gorges himself on that sensation, on the crushing thrill of Jack on top of him, heavy and handsome, steady and soft.

“You’re squeezing,” Jack pants, and Bitty lets go like he’s grabbed for a hot pan without an oven mitt. “And - I need a breather. I’m still really full.”

“Yeah, of course,” says Bitty, breathless himself, and he curls up beside Jack as he catches his breath, one hand braced on the rising and falling curve of Jack’s side. Jack’s eyes are heavy-lidded, his mouth a little open as he breathes, and Bitty finds it intoxicating, the way he manages to look so deliciously afterglow-y even when they’ve just been making out.

“This was the break I needed,” Jack murmurs, thumbing at Bitty’s cheek. “I’ve been dreaming of lying next to you for weeks, just like this.”

Bitty presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Me too. I miss having you to keep me warm when it gets cold out.”

“Fifty degrees is not cold, Bitty.”

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Québécois!”

Jack grins and rolls onto his back. “Missed debating the weather with you, too. That wasn’t part of my fantasy, but it should have been.”

“Did you fantasize about my baking, too?” asks Bitty, patting the hump of Jack’s belly. “I’m positive whoever is feeding you in Providence can’t hold a candle to me.”

“There was probably a lot more food in your fantasies than in mine,” Jack teases, and Bitty’s cheeks go hot enough to fry bacon on. 

“Okay, I have to ask: how did you figure out I was into -  _ that _ ?”

“You mean this?” Jack teases, pulling up his shirt to expose his manhandled belly and grabbing a handful of it. “Or the part where you’ve been feeding me all day?”

Bitty buries his face in his pillow, sure it’s he’s as red and incandescent as the OPEN neon sign in the window at Annie’s. “Yes,” he says, muffled. “That.”

Jack laughs and pries him from the pillow, and Bitty hides his face in Jack’s collarbone instead. “How did you know?” he presses. “Am I that obvious?”

Because if there’s one thing he knows, it’s that Jack is one of  _ the  _ most oblivious people on the planet. If  _ he  _ picked up on Bitty’s kinks, Bitty must be as transparent as a white t-shirt after a summer storm.

“I kinda guessed,” says Jack finally, and Bitty gives him such an incredulous look that he instantly caves, laughing. “Okay, okay, Lardo told me she suspected it. But still! I noticed a little. Do you know that you watch me very intently when I eat?”

“Oh  _ Lord _ ,” says Bitty, blushing. 

“And you send a lot of food home with me. The guys were like, ‘He sent you fifteen loaves of bread?!’ and I had to tell them no, no, it was for the whole team.” Jack’s brow furrows. “Wait. That  _ was _ for the whole team, right?”

“Oh my god!” says Bitty, diving back for his pillow. Jack catches him before he can get all the way there, bear-hugging him to his chest. “Yes, that was for the whole team!”

“I don’t know!” says Jack, kissing his hair. “Sometimes you give me a lot of food and act like that’s normal! You sent me like eight dozen cookies before training!”

“I do that to  _ everyone _ ! That’s just how Southern people are!”

“You’re not helping your case,” Jack says, loosening his hold on Bitty. “Like all those cookies you sent me before training. I know those were probably for the team too, but -”

Bitty is doing his best to keep his face straight and innocent. Yes, of course those dozens of cookies were for the whole team! No, of course they weren’t  _ just for Jack _ !

“Let’s just say it wasn’t really a surprise to my teammates when I started putting on a few,” Jack finishes, and it gets Bitty so wound up to hear him say it that he absently slips a hand up Jack’s shirt to grab what is definitely now more than  _ a few _ . 

“You said you ate the cookies, though, didn’t you?” he asks in spite of himself. “All of them?”

Jack raises an eyebrow, grinning. “So they  _ were  _ all for me!”

“Ughhh!” groans Bitty, throwing himself facedown into his pillow. “Maybe they were! I don’t hear you complaining!”

“Never,” says Jack comfortably, settling beside him and stroking the small of his back. “If that’s the consolation prize for having to be away from you, I’ll take it.”

Bitty emerges from beneath the pillow and pats Jack’s belly. “Well, for the record, missing me looks amazing on you,” he says, letting a coy smile roll over his face. Lord, he loves this boy. “Just imagine how good being with me all the time would look.”

Jack laughs and flops back onto his pillow. “Oh, Bits,” he says grandly, “I can’t wait to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!! I really wanna write more check please, i love these boys.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading (and waiting)!! let me know if there are any other check please things you’d want to see!


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